


Broken

by CourtingInsanity



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Dark, F/M, Malfoy Manor, Nikita Gill, POV Draco Malfoy, POV First Person, Poetry prompt, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-11-29 05:45:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18218990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CourtingInsanity/pseuds/CourtingInsanity
Summary: She is a broken thing under the psychopathic torture of his crazy aunt. As he watches, Draco reflects on the things he has fixed in his young life, and wonders at the possibility of mending Granger.





	Broken

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the "Never Apologising for our Wild" - Nikita Gill Poetry Challenge hosted by Dramione Fanfiction Writers. From the brain of msmerlin, this was such a fun idea and I can't wait to participate in similar challenges in the future! 
> 
>  
> 
> My prompt: 
> 
> "because she is a broken pretty thing,  
> and he is the little boy who grew up  
> mending  
> treating,  
> loving  
> broken things."
> 
>  
> 
> Massive love to my alpha/beta and amazing friend, LadyKenz347, who is a Master at angst and description, and at writing in first person POV, and present tense :D <3

Her scream pierces my soul like a sewing needle gliding through the seam of a pillowcase. I’ve witnessed many a torture session in the past few months, but nothing like this. There’s nothing quite like the way my stomach churns watching an innocent person retch in pain, but seeing _her_? A girl I’ve known for years, competed with for years, lost to for years…

 

I want to tear my gaze away, but Father’s glare is burning into the right side of my face and I know if I shudder, or close my eyelids for even a second, if I dare attempt to drown out the grizzly scene before me, I know I shall be punished.

 

Anger pulses with the churning feeling of disgust as I continue to watch. It’s as much my torture as it is hers, though consciously I know that’s unfair; my pain does not compare right now. I wish I could tell her that.

 

Watching her writhe on the floor, I forget that this room of nightmares was once a warm, well-lit drawing room in which I used to play at my parent’s feet. They would sit in the wing-back chintz which matched the wallpaper as I drove trains and walked dragons across the unforgiving marble floor.

 

The chairs are gone now. Death Eaters need space to work, and they chose this, the chamber of some of my fondest memories. It is sick and twisted, but that is, after all, their modus operandi. I should not be surprised.

 

Bile rises in my throat and I swallow it down as another scream cuts through the room. I try not to flinch but my hand twitches where it is resting behind my back.

 

An almost interceptable clearing of a throat comes from my where my father is standing, observing the action, but I know better than to look at him. I heed his warning, though, and attempt to relax my stance.

 

My eyes flutter briefly as she flops onto her back, her body arching unnaturally behind the form of my crazy aunt. I can clearly see the curves of her face, twisted and mangled as the looming presence casts shadows over her expression of sheer terror. Bellatrix is screaming, her scratchy voice mingling with the pained sounds of her victim.

 

 _The girl has a name,_ my mind sings to me as I focus on the familiar face once more. _Hermione Granger…_

 

Her name is drawn out as it plays over in my head. Images of her at school, in Diagon Alley, at the Quidditch World Cup, accompany the repetition of the moniker.

 

Conflict swells inside me, ripping at my soul as I watch her tears mix with the dirt from her hair on the marble floor. Though she was a regular presence in my life, Granger was not someone I spent a great deal of time thinking about. Watching her here, I realise that there is more to her than the bushy-haired swot I’d come to ridicule. There is a not-so-subtle strength in the way she clenches her jaw, refusing to make eye contact with her psychopathic torturer. It’s a strength I know I do not possess. I might be jealous.

 

Her brown, wild hair is splayed out around her head, tears raining down from her eyes into the matted mess. I’m no stranger to the pain wrecking her body; I’ve experienced it more than my fair share, both at home and at school. Hell, I’ve even been the one casting the fucking spell currently shattering the brunette Gryffindor in front of me.

 

I will never forget the look of pride painted on my father’s face the first time I brought a Muggleborn to their knees. Afterwards, I snorted wryly over a porcelain toilet bowl, sweat pouring from my hairline as I thought that if Father could only see me now, forever mentally fucked up for having committed such an atrocity, he would not be so smug.

 

My teeth tug at my lower lip, my tongue swiping against the back of it quickly as my heart rate increases. It is an action that I know I can get away with as it is mostly concealed; no warning cough comes from my father, at least. I have to do something to stop myself from reacting as Granger arches again, screaming that she doesn’t know, she doesn’t know, please, _she doesn’t fucking know_ …

 

Surprise flares in my chest as I realise that I want to step in. I have no power, not even in my own house. Surprisingly, I think my father has even less. I know this. I know it too well. But that doesn’t stop the protectiveness I have for the bruised and beaten Mudblood on my drawing room floor, and I want to yell, I want to scream or thrash or hex anyone who comes near her. Even if that means certain death at the hands of my crazy aunt.

 

“She doesn’t know!” I imagine the way my words would echo around the room. “Stop! She doesn’t know anything!”

 

But I don’t, because not only would that be arranging my own appointment of torture for a later time... it would also be a lie.

 

Since when did Hermione Granger not _know_ something? Of course she knew where the sword came from, and what its purpose was. Bellatrix may not even know the entirety of it, but I’d bet the entire contents of my Gringott’s vault that Granger does.

 

Granger is openly sobbing now, rolled on to her side as my Aunt drags her cursed knife along her forearm, making crude cuts into her soft flesh. She isn’t fighting, doesn’t thrash, or beg, or plead… she has accepted her fate. She has decided that her death is more desirable than outing the Boy Who Lived.

 

She’s stupid, I decide.

 

But also brave, and pretty, and so, incredibly _broken_.

 

I like broken things. I have a knack for fixing them—I always have, even as a child.

 

Stuffed animals, toy broomsticks, books, my childhood Quidditch ball set; I learned to fix it all.

 

As I got older, I taught myself how to fix the grand piano without magic, something I hid from my parents just as shamefully as my sticky morning sheets. Even if my knowledge and skill eventually led to me fixing that vanishing cabinet last year, I doubt they’d be pleased to know the truth.

 

People are fun to fix, too. Of course, to fix a person you must first break them, and I found I was naturally good at achieving that. I broke friends and enemies, and enjoyed attempting to rebuild them. It wasn’t always easy, and my success rate was significantly lower than that of inanimate objects.

 

A piercing shriek pulls me from my musing, and my eyebrows twitch, wanting to pull into a frown. I keep my face neutral and lock eyes with Granger, refusing to see her broken limbs. Instead, I think about the snitch.

 

I was eight, and it wasn’t the best quality—a cheap version of a toy one of my father’s business lacky’s had purchased for me to butter him up. It flew into the trees near the small clearing I used to play in and became tangled in the leaves, wings fluttering in its last attempts to fly Many would have left it; it wasn’t worth much, anyway. But even then I could see what it could be. I knew my hands could fix what anyone else would have considered _too far broken_.  

 

Granger is the broken snitch, crumpled on the floor, sobbing loudly as Bellatrix continues to hiss into her ear, preparing to discard her

 

Bellatrix holds the glinting weapon in her fist, bringing it high over Granger’s semi-conscious body in a theatrical display of power.

 

Her wailing fills the chamber like water in a bucket, and as her blood spills onto the once spotless marble, my heart clenches in a way it never has before.

 

Red. An endless river of red. Blood as red as mine, my mother’s, my father’s… I’ve never seen Bellatrix bleed, but I’d wager that her blood is the same colour as that currently weeping from Granger’s arm.

 

_Mudblood. Muddy blood. Brown blood. Dirty blood._

 

For all these years I’ve thought us different. I swallow as reality threatens to crash over me and sweep me away; I must keep my head.

 

“No, please!” she screams. “Please, stop! Please, help!”

 

Her eyes lock onto mine and I stop breathing completely. My hands clench into fists behind my back and this time I pay no attention to my father as he coughs inconspicuously.

 

Now she is mouthing the words, sound having left her. She is mute, tears leaking from her eyes as her flesh is seared away by my aunt. I feel hopeless—truly _hopeless—_ for the first time since the Dark Lord’s return.

 

She is begging _me._ Her lips form her silent plea, but there is nothing I can do. I will my breathing to remain normal as my lips part. I want to tell her I’ll fix her. After this, I promise I will fix her.

 

Just like I fixed the vanishing cabinet, and the snitch, and the toys. Right now, staring into her hollow brown eyes, I vow that I will fix Hermione Granger.


End file.
